I immediately flicked the computer on and logged in. My scores are:

Overall Score (/300): 164

% Ranking: 72

Section 1: 64

Section 2: 57

Section 3: 43

I’ve been following this all day, from fellow applicants to the massive topic over on boards.ie. A lot of repeat applicants (apparently) have moved up, and quite highly too. There seems to be a consensus that prep courses for the exam help.  I didn’t do one. I only did the practice paper. We can all see how Section 3, my BFF, turned out- no surprises there, coloured squares send me into convulsions. I was surprised that Section 1 overtook Section 2 though. Bittersweet surprise.

I didn’t want to blog straight away. I wanted to think it over… and I think I’m okay with it. I haven’t told anyone really apart from my fellow Medicine applicants from school. Initially I was really disappointed and that’s because I’m not that happy with how my Leaving went. I think I needed to hit the 90 mark on this and I didn’t. With a score of  164, if last year’s points stay the same, I’ll need 550 points. I can only cross my fingers, but after Chemistry and Irish, I don’t think it’s happening. This morning I felt pretty crap…numb, when I first got them.

I’m not that sad now. Of course it’ll suck if I don’t get Medicine this year but, to be honest, I’m okay with repeating. I know what I want to do and what I have to do. The uncertainty I had during the past 2 years is gone. I’m sure that this is what I want to do.  Most grown people don’t know what they want to do every day. I’ve got that.

So either I get there this year, next year or after another degree because it’s just a question of time. I’m sure as hell not done yet and neither should you be if you’re feeling down. Yeah, these results are important but they’re not the be all and end all of everything-that goes for every course, every exam.

To all of you, I hope you are happy with this morning’s results and even more happy come August. Now I turn my attention to picking courses I might or might not take up this September. Remember, CAO deadline this Thursday July 1st, 5.15 pm- and don’t give up on Medicine on today’s results, keep it there and cross your fingers a grinds school explodes on results day! (joke!!!)

Mister X.

I know it’s been ages for my last post. Apologies. School is just pretty insane at the moment…. Some mock papers also took much longer to get back than others and I wanted to blog about them all as a big, miserable mess. I hopped on over to the Mister X’s Journal to the right… “elePHAnT”? Has it really been that long? Might as well throw that out there then.

HPAT. I was at Trinity College (at which there was a chronic shortage of toilets…) No panic attacks or anything the night before thought it did take me a while to fall asleep. Overall I though the whole thing was organised really well, smooth in and out apart from the blip of handing out papers. Is it true people cried in UCD?

Section 1: Surprisingly okay. I think I had to rush at the end and hadn’t a notion about the dragonfly or mosquito question on wingspan. Graphs seemed off to me. Otherwise, this section was alright I thought.

Section 2: Again, not too bad. Apart from the dialogue between the child talking to her dad about leaving her mother? I found that a little difficult, as if the questions were presuming too much from little snippets of conversation. Overall, I thought it too was alright.

Section 3: Sweet Mother of Jesus. This section was all over the place for me and I found it much less logical than anything on the sample paper. I mean, I got a few but most of it was everywhere. Not happy with that one and it could be the one that let me down.

For the most part though, I was happy/relieved. It’s one more thing done right? Kind of messed up my timing though, because I sped through Section 2 to leave extra for 3 in any practice I did. You can’t do this! Tight for time, but generally ok. What was up with people with beeping stopwatches? Seriously, you waste time tapping the yoke every 30 seconds! Fingers crossed, salt over the left shoulder, three-leafed clover, horseshoe and rabbit’s foot at the ready

Ah the Mocks. I got 475 points. I’m needing 550. Suffice to say I freaked out a little bit. But I’ve chilled a lot, become more organised in my approach to notes/study and decided, hey, if HPAT goes okay and the Leaving sucks I can always repeat. (Don’t tell Kevin I’d love to stick around another year haha ). In truth though it is a big leap to 550 and I am a little apprehensive.

English     B1

Overall, pretty amazed. My poetry was badly, badly answered in my opinion. Paper 1 was my saving grace which I suppose is a good thing. Paper 2 can be improved although Lear/Comparative/Poetry (eh…whole paper..) need serious work.

Irish     B3

Again, I was surprised. My An Triail question was one of the best, although I missed a poetry question and my Aiste was riddled with mistakes. Oral let me down and I need big work there.

Maths C1

My only Ordinary Level paper. I’ll admit: I did nothing, looked at none of the stuff I hadn’t done in Honors. My Trig is ferociously weak and I’m really going to have to pull up my sleeves to get the A1 in this. Was it just me though or was the paper really hard compared to past years? Our’s was DEB I think, had the tough tax question as number 1 on Paper 1…

Geography    B2

I put a lot of cramming into Geography and none of my regions came up. I had to work on memory a LOT and I think the paper was marked too easily. My SRPs were really hazy and general. I was pretty surprised with the result and my timing wasn’t too great in the exam.

French B2

I couldn’t believe this result but overall I found the mock disappointing and much too easy in comparison with the past papers, particularly the comprehensions on which I got full marks on the first. The listening was ok but again, like Irish, my oral was not good. Again, a major source of stress over the coming weeks.

Biology B1

Delighted. I really love Biology and worked hard at it throughout the year. I did a little cramming but the constant work obviously paid off.  Hopefully I can haul this up to the A bracket over the next few months.

Chemistry C2

My lowest result. My God, the cramming for this one. I’ve since started keeping up with topics as they come but I find the subject very difficult, especially learning the material off and not mixing up chemicals. Doesn’t help either we’re crawling through the course.

Sooo… overall? Yeah, I’m happy with the results I suppose because they’re mostly good. I just really hope I can bump up for June. Reckon it’s possible? Because my parents are fairly skeptical  and my friends (who were just delighted to pass) don’t want to hear it..hope everyone else’s were ok!

This is my major source of Vitamin Chillax : http://songza.org/

It’s keeping me sane. Peace out!

Mister X.

This is worrying news for those sitting the Leaving Cert in June.

If these figures are correct then no one has a safe course. Some courses won’t see a substantial rise in applicants however others could see points rise significantly.

The rise in applicants is directly linked to the recession as young people choose to further their education. The fear of job losses has pushed many to re-skill and re-train themselves in the hope of finding secure employment.

This is our aim too. We want to have third level qualifications and we all want secure careers out of them however it’s clear that these next 4 months are make or break time for many of us!

If you’re on this site you’ve probably paid my blog a cursory interest at least. Figure you might be interested in what I got, in the end. As of 12pm noon today the results have been available over the internet. You just need to remember your PIN number, which took me like a goddamn hour to find. I was more relieved when I found the damn thing than when I saw my results. Which weren’t bad.

Totalling 405 in points. Slightly above average. Story of my life.

Funnily enough I was expecting to fall into the 320-360 range, so I did considerably better than I thought I would. So I’m happy enough. The A1 in english also provides me with some bragging rights (though for me it’s more of a “fuck off I got an A1 in english” in the holster if anyone gets more points than I and feels the need to express that sentiment)

I think most people got the same feeling as me. That “huh, did significantly better than I thought I would” feeling. See, I don’t think the Leaving is really about the results, in the end. And I think, for the same reason, the system has been kept the same all these years, despite the flaws. You see, every culture has what is known as a ‘rite of passage’, since the dawn of mankind. Something you have to accomplish, in order to prove your maturity and adulthood, which builds your character along the way. Something everyone goes through as a society. The Leaving Cert, I think, is the modern-day equivilent of bringing down a woolly mammoth and taking home its tusk, or hiking to the top of a sacred mountain and meditating for days without food.

The results are just a consideration. A minor point in the grand scheme of things. The important part is, we beat the Leaving Certificate.

Or I did, anyway. Sucks to be everyone who just failed everything. Day-um.

I’ve been thinking hard about taking the ordinary level German paper. That would make the third ordinary subject in my pool (the other two being irish and maths), which is starting to get depressing. I mean, ordinary irish and maths are forgiveable, because Higher maths is a gigantic time sink that you shouldn’t take unless you need it, even if you’re a maths genius, and everybody sucks at Irish. But once you start getting past the two-ordinary mark I start feeling too ordinary. And could there be a more insulting word for it? Ordinary. Way to kick a bastard while he’s down. Even ‘foundation’ has a nicer ring to it than ‘ordinary’. They should call it “Lower-Middle Class Blue-Collar Wage Slave Level”, and even that wouldn’t be as insulting. Plenty of lower-class people who are unique.

So, I’m stuck between my pride and prejudices, and my perfunctory work ethics. On the one hand, you’ve got the humiliating prospect of taking yet another ordinary subject, limiting my potential maximum points from a respectable 560 to 520 (still clinging to the hope that my mind goes into overdrive at some point and I pull everything off with effortless perfection). On the other hand, you’ve got my lackadaisical approach to study. If I tried hard enough I could probably pull off a B in Higher German, or at least a C. Probably. But there’s the ever-increasing risk that I wont. And with the fiasco that was my orals, there’s even a risk of failing it, which would put a serious spanner in the works (seeing as how I’m aiming mostly for arts courses that require a third language). Which gets me started on the overall retardation that is our Central Applications Office.

(I prefer China's CAO...)

What relevance does German have to a psychology course? Huh? It’s not like Freud himself has risen from the dead to teach it personally. Even if that were the case, everyone knows that the rotting vocal cords of zombies make specific languages a moot point (they speak in death rattles, you see).
The other end of the scale is just as absurd. Take Biotechnology for example. Requirements: 340 points, one science subject, any level. If I got these results, I’d be able to take it:
Ordinary Biology: D3
Higher Art: B3
Higher English: B3
Higher French: A1
Ordinary Geography: A2
Ordinary Maths: A2
Total Points: 345
Imagine that. I’m a guy who lived in France for a while and is good at art. I suck at everything else, barely scraping a pass in biology (and I studied like hell for ordinary geo and maths). And I can do biotechnology, simply because nobody knows WTF it even is (and so doesn’t apply for it/jack up the points). (Note: Hypothetical)

And this is really the ultimate flaw of the Leaving Cert. People talk about “different kinds of intelligence” and how the LC “only tests memory”, and that’s true to a point. Thing is, you don’t exactly want a doctor who can’t remember the right prescription or handle situations under pressure (although 18 is a bit young to be making those judgments about a person). The LC makes sense in a general weeding-out-the-stupid-folk scheme, but then there’s people like me — and I really don’t think I’m alone in this — who work exceptionally well when they give a fuck.

Now, I give a fuck about my future, which means I kinda have to give a fuck about the LC, but I don’t really give a fuck. It’s an artificial fuck-giving. I half-heartedly give a fuck, so the effort I put into it is proportionally half-hearted. And the LC just doesn’t reflect that. If I gave a fuck it’s possible I could be the absolute greatest doctor on the planet, but I never really considered medicine, because I know I could never give enough of a fuck about the LC to get a place in it. And also because it creeps me out. I guess the counter-argument is that people who can’t adapt what they give a fuck about aren’t suited to the important roles in society. You can’t always do what you want. (Maybe I should pull up from this downward spiral of profane rambling…)

Still, something about the system reeks. Talent should be utilised by society, not discarded because the talented person can’t focus hard enough on crap which is completely irrelevant to what they’re talented at.
“I want to do psychology.”
“Okay then. Account for the rise of facism in post-war Germany.”
“Look, I think I’d make a good psychologist if you give me a chance.”
“Answer the damn question!”
“I don’t know. Something about the Treaty of Versaille.”
“Okay then. Enjoy your life as a plumber.”

The CAO system: even more retarded than this tiger.

I’ve no idea why some young people see these things as a matter of complete unimportance, but there’s certainly a parallel between this apathetic attitude and the attitude a great deal of people take towards the Leaving Cert.

“Ah sure, it’s only the Leaving! Who cares, no big deal.”

Well, here’s where I get to introduce myself. I genuinely do care about things like voting. And the Leaving Cert.
Hello, I’m Jennie, and I’ve absolutely no problem admitting to you all that I’m taking the Leaving Certificate completely serious. Now.
For you see, I can identify with both parties. As I’m a repeat student I’ve been as aloof and lethargic about the Leaving Cert as I can be and now, I couldn’t care more about it. I’m actually a student who’s genuinely concerned about results and the likes! I’ve learned my lesson: Do not take the Leaving Certificate lightly.

Last year, admittedly, I did not doss and/or scoff at those who were aiming for high points as I was in fact one of these aforementioned students who was aiming to take over the world, one A grade at a time. My primary problem was that I lacked some vital components for a perfect student- maturity, determination, enthusiasm- almost everything but intelligence to be honest. I sailed through sixth year as if in a tumult of fascination, leaving everything until the last minute and epitomising a procrastinating student. You’d hardly believe me if I told you all that the first time I looked at Atomic Theory in Chemistry, which comprises the first eight or so chapters of the book and is guaranteed to come upon the paper, was the night before my Leaving Certificate exam. There was a lot of coffee consumed that night.

I suppose now is the time to tell you all what I did achieve then? Well, 550 points actually. Usually when I announce this I hear a resounding “guh???” from all those assembled, followed by an extremely sarcastic “Yes, you really were apathetic towards the Leaving Cert, weren’t you?”
Well, everyone has different expectations and mine were, rather lamentably, much higher than this. I’m aware of the fact that my points were pretty damn good, but they clearly weren’t sufficiently so if I didn’t get enough points to do my course of choice- which is medicine. I hear it’s not very nice but a spoonful of sugar helps.

I’m sitting the same seven subjects as last year, namely Irish, English, Maths, French, Biology, Chemistry and Geography, and I’m doing more than ever before. If I don’t get to study medicine next year I’ll be devastated, and I now know that high points involve effort, dedication and commitment.

I just started in De La Salle College in Waterford, which may seem slightly strange to those of you familiar with the place, seeing as it’s an all boys’ school and I’m not, well, male. The school is, however, aware of this mild technicality and I can assure you that it’s not a problem in the least. There are in fact a rather small number of other females who are sharing in my situation- they have a co-educational repeat year it seems. The ratio still looks a little something like this though:
Boys : Girls
100 : 1
I’m clearly in a rather unique and interesting situation, how many girls go to an all boys’ school after all? I used to attend a ridiculously small all girls’ school not far from where I live, and now? I’m in this huge school full of testosterone and hilarity! I love it, and I’ve got a feeling many of my blogs will be intrinsically linked with the strangeness of it all.

I won’t give away all of my amazing plans for this blog just yet, mainly because I’m not organized in the least and haven’t a clue what’s to come.
I can, however, tell you all that they won’t be as drab and informative as this one. I’m really more of a hilarious ranter, so feel free to check back regularly and leave me some feed-back.

There’s plenty more I’d be only delighted to write about right now but I’m off to the pub. Even apparent nerds (√16 life) need a break.

Discuss the leaving cert in the forum